Server Migration Center (SMC) is a migration platform developed by Alibaba Cloud. SMC can help you migrate one or more source servers to Alibaba Cloud.

Overview

SMC can help you migrate one or more source servers to Alibaba Cloud. Source servers can be servers in data centers, virtual machines, cloud hosts on other cloud platforms, and servers of other types. For more information about SMC, its tutorials, and best practices, see What is SMC?

Benefits

SMC has the following benefits:
  • Migration from diverse platforms and environments
    • SMC allows you to migrate source servers that run various versions of Windows and Linux operating systems. For more information, see Limits.
    • SMC allows you to migrate data from servers in data centers, on-premises virtual machines (VMs), or third-party cloud platforms to Alibaba Cloud. Supported VMs include VMware, VirtualBox, Xen, KVM, and Hyper-V. Third-party cloud platforms can be Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Tencent Cloud, UCloud, China Telecom e-Cloud, and QingCloud. SMC1
  • Independence from the underlying environments of source servers
    • SMC supports the following types of migration: physical-to-cloud (P2C), virtual-to-cloud (V2C), and cloud-to-cloud (C2C).
    • SMC supports multiple types of file systems and disks.
  • Migration without service interruption

    During migration, you do not need to stop services that run on the source servers.

  • Simple, lightweight, and flexible configuration
    • SMC provides a lightweight client that does not require installation.
    • SMC provides multiple migration methods. You can select a method based on your needs.
    • After you start a migration task, SMC manages the entire migration progress.
  • Secure data transmission
    • By default, SMS uses 2048-bit RSA keys to encrypt data during data transmission.
    • SMS allows you to migrate servers over the private network such as VPN gateway and physical connections provided by Alibaba Cloud Express Connect.

Migration process

SMC consists of a client and a console. You must import the information of a source server to the console by using the client. This step connects the source server to your Alibaba Cloud account. Then, you must create a migration task in the console for the source server and start the migration task to migrate the source server to Alibaba Cloud. For more information, see Migration process.

The following figure shows how to use SMC to migrate a source server. smc2

Best practices

This section describes the best practices for migrating servers from different sources to Alibaba Cloud. For more information, see Migrate servers to Alibaba Cloud.

References

  • SMC provides free expert support for your cloud migration. For more information, see Contact us.
  • For information about how to use SMC API, see API operations.
  • For information about how to use SMC SDK, see SDK overview.
  • If you want to migrate only databases, we recommend that you use Alibaba Cloud Data Transmission Service (DTS). For more information, see Data migration.